Kristi Noem thought bag stealer was her grandchild as thief’s smooth moves to get her purse are revealed

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem initially thought the person who stole her designer bag was her grandchild, according to a report.

Noem was dining with her family at a restaurant in Washington, D.C. over the weekend when her $4,000 Gucci handbag — containing $3,000 in cash, a Louis Vuitton wallet, her DHS access badge, apartment keys, passport, blank checks, and other personal items — was stolen. She initially thought the thief was her grandchild, a department spokesperson said.

“She could feel this person as they snatched her bag, but thought they were her grandchildren playing until realizing a minute later that her bag was gone,” Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, told the New York Times on Thursday.

The spokesperson then detailed just how the thief operated: “Her bag was under her feet and the perpetrator hooked the bag with his foot and dragged it across the floor and put a coat over it and took it.”

The incident transpired on Easter Sunday at The Capital Burger. Noem’s children and grandchildren were in town and she had planned on using the cash “to treat her family to dinner, activities and Easter gifts,” McLaughlin has said.

The incident sparked scrutiny over the Secret Service’s handling of the incident involving Noem, a Cabinet official who leads the department charged with handling the nation’s security. The Independent has reached out to the agency for comment.

At least “two on-duty plainclothes members” of the Secret Service were seated at the restaurant's bar, between where Noem was sitting and the front doors to the restaurant, when the incident occurred, a source told NBC News. The source also noted that the restaurant wasn’t particularly busy.

She also has a “round-the-clock security detail,” a law enforcement official told the Times.

The Secret Service has now launched an investigation into the incident.

The agency has identified a white male suspect who was allegedly wearing a medical mask, CNN reported Monday.

“This is a security breach that actually has high consequences, and it needs immediate and further review by the Secret Service and DHS, and other law enforcement partners,” Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent and a CNN law enforcement analyst, told the network earlier this week.

Concerns over the law enforcement agency aren't new. Over the summer, many, including members of Congress, questioned how a man could have opened fire in an attempt to assassinate then-Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump at one of his campaign rallies in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static even though risks have multiplied and technology has evolved,” an independent panel wrote in a scathing report in October 2024.

The panel also found shortfalls that included “numerous communications issues” and failing to consider the unique risks that come with protecting someone like Trump, “who generates strong emotions in many people, including supporters and detractors,” the report said.